Fabrication Used To Scam Sex Worker Community Funds

5/22: THIS WAS A FABRICATION. WE ARE DEEPLY SORRY, ESPECIALLY TO OUR READERS WHO ARE SEX WORKING WOMEN OF COLOR, AND TO THE WOMAN WHOSE PHOTOGRAPH WAS USED FRAUDULENTLY. SEX WORKER COLLECTIVE FUND LYSISTRATA HAS STATED IT WILL RETURN ANY DONATIONS GIVEN TO THEM FOR THIS. LILY FURY IS A FORMER CONTRIBUTOR, AS WERE HER INVENTED PERSONAS OF COLOR, “HARMONY” AND “BAMBI”, AND WE APOLOGIZE FOR GIVING HER A PLATFORM TO FURTHER HER FRAUD AND RACIST POLITICAL POSTURING. WE CONDEMN HER ABSOLUTELY.

On the night of May 15th, immigrant sex worker activist and Tits and Sass contributor Bambi and longtime Tits and Sass contributor and sex worker activist Lily Fury were raped and then arrested by an NYPD undercover cop posing as a client. He called himself “Thomas Carvan” and referred to a provider by the name of “Lucy Luxe” to vouch for him as a reference. Fury was held for five days until she was released on her own recognizance on the 19th. Bambi was held in Rikers without bail for 8 days, until this evening. Tits and Sass will continue to report on this story throughout the week. In the meantime, if you’d like to donate to Bambi’s legal defense, you can donate via her friend Harmony Ortiz through her Facebook profile, as well.

7 COMMENTS

Just posted a retraction above. We are so sorry for our part in this, especially given that there are plenty of sex working women of color actually in this situation who will now find it harder to get financial help from this community. We don’t want to take it down because we want to be transparent about the fact that we made this mistake, but the fake persona’s name is not used in full and the fraudulent photo was taken down.

Mistakes are inevitable in any sort of writing. How a publication handles those mistakes says a great deal about its integrity. The fact that TAS posted a clear retraction and then a pair of follow-up posts examining the situation has raised my opinion of this site. Thank you!

[…] Why did (white) sex worker rights journalists and activists so readily distribute the call out for s… while so many Black women are surviving and dying without any of us rallying to support them? Perhaps they were drawn toward a sensationalist story involving a cis white women with a great deal of social capital? How many of us are responsible for empowering Lily toward her actions? […]